After
saying our goodbyes, I went back to the room and did some packing. I wasn't in a
hurry, I just planned on not making it all the way to Medellin today. I was also
pretty damn tired. Didn't end up leaving until around 10:00 AM and had to make a
quick stop at auto shop to get some carb cleaner to clean out all of the WD-40
on my brakes. I've learned my lesson with WD-40 and disk brakes: mask, mask,
mask before you apply! Having oily pads and disks magnifies your stopping
time/distance by two!

Riding out of Cartagena was a little bit of a
madhouse; apparently the roads weren't as good on the outskirts of the city as
they were in the interior. Check out the elevation difference between these two
lanes:

It's
hard to tell, but it's almost a foot and a half high! Right off the bat one of
the things I've noticed about Colombia is all of the motorcycles; there's tons
of them! Still mostly 200cc and smaller; but still, they're
everywhere!

After about 20 minutes of everyman-for-himself riding to get
out of the city, things quieted down.......until I saw this:

Ohh
no! I thought I had escaped the speed bumps/topes/tumolos/vibradores when I left
Central America. Apparently they are following me so that I don't get to
comfortable and actually start enjoying the riding....

I rode for about
an hour then stopped for a little street-meat at a roadside stand.

I
asked for a typical Colombian meal and this is what I got:

Some
pork that looked like it had been cooked two days ago, some really bland and dry
plantains, and a very tasty "arepa". Arepas are similar to Papusas; a big thick
tortilla type bread stuffed with meat or cheese or both. I had one bite of the
pork and was about to take another when I realized that they hadn't quite
totally skinned the pig when they butchered it. There were still quite a few
curly black hairs sticking out of the meat. I ate the arepa and got the hell out
of there.

Back on the road again I began seeing another central American
nemesis that seems to be haunting me:

The
semi-domesticated ass! I think I saw about 20 today grazing beside the road,
most of them were untethered, just waiting to jump out into the road in front of
an unsuspecting gringo motociclista!

Colombia is definitely bike
friendly. I had heard from numerous people that the toll booths where free for
motos and had a little motorcycle lane on the far right side.

Brilliant!
This needs to be instituted everywhere!

After only a few hours of
riding, I was feeling done. I'm still tired from that damn boat ride and I
haven't been sleeping well lately. I decided to call it a day at the next major
town.

I pulled into Sincelejo and immediately saw a few likely looking
hotels. The first one I stopped at was closed due to construction, but the
second one said they had rooms for $50,000 pesos. Doing the rough math in my
head, I figured that would be about $25 american, so I said yes.

However, after they ran my debit card and I got my receipt back, I
realized that it was $150,000 pesos (about $83 american)! Snap! I totally
misunderstood the lady behind the desk! Just like the space gravy
incident.

Unfortunately, I was too tired to raise a fuss at this point
and I dully shuffled off to my room. The Hotel is called "Hotel
Boston".

To
it's credit, it's almost as good as a low to mid level hotel room back in the
states.....except that the hot water doesn't work. They do have a nice private
garage though.

Which
is only occupied by my poor little abused XRL....

I'm
going to make the most out this outrageously overpriced hotel room and get some
much needed sleep now. In the morning I may thrash it like a rock star and then
blast out of here before the staff catch on to the fact that I threw the
flat-screen TV out the window....